If he weren’t already making $1 million an episode starring on the most popular sitcom on TV — and enjoying every minute of it — Matthew Perry reveals that he wouldn’t mind doing a dramatic series, something like “The West Wing.”

“I’m a big fan of that show,” he muses, lounging comfortably on a love seat at a posh Beverly Hills hotel, his shoes kicked off. “Who knows, maybe I’ll go over and replace Rob Lowe.”

Perry, who plays neurotic Chandler Bing in the ensemble comedy “Friends,” a show about the antics of a circle of attractive Gen X city dwellers, isn’t serious about joining the large cast of the political drama series, though he might be well suited for it. Of course, Perry’s got at least one more season on the NBC comedy series to keep him occupied before he can make any other long-term commitments. He’s also uncertain whether he wants to jump on board another TV show right away, having spent the majority of his adult life starring in a phenomenally successful one. But he loves the medium, he says, so who knows.

“‘Friends’ has been a major chapter in my life,” he says, puffing on a cigarette after a long morning of interviews promoting his newest movie, a romantic comedy caper called “Serving Sara.”

“I got the show when I was 24 years old and now I’m 33,” he continues, adjusting his new black-rimmed glasses. “That’s a pretty significant little patch of time.”

The next chapter of his life says the actor, who actually turns 33 on Aug. 19, is yet to be written. He has a few ideas about what he’d like to see emerge on the page. For starters, he’d like to find a girlfriend, someone who’s “happy, just enjoying her life,” as he puts it, and maybe settle down. He’d also like to continue improving his tennis game. (He and tennis pro Jennifer Capriati recently beat Serena Williams in a doubles match at a celebrity tournament.) Career-wise, he wants to do more movies, expanding his repertoire into the dramatic realm. He also wouldn’t mind it if the tabloids turned down the heat on him. In the recent weeks, allegations have surfaced that he’s fallen off the wagon, fathered Elizabeth Hurley’s baby, is getting married or at least in a serious romantic relationship with Capriati and is dating a host of Hollywood starlets.

“I like the way it makes me sound but I can’t do all that stuff in a four-month period,” the tanned and rested looking actor says with a laugh.

Actually, Perry reveals that he spent the summer on personal pursuits.

“I focused on this new obsession in my life which is playing tennis,” he says. “I played practically every day this summer for a couple of hours. I traveled to France (to see friend Capriati compete in the French Open). There was a good portion of the summer where I didn’t think about work at all or pick up a trade or look for my name in ‘Entertainment Weekly.’ As a result of that, I’ve starred in all the tabloids.”

For the most part, Perry laughs off the gossip. After all, he’s learned to live in the spotlight over the past eight years of appearing in a hit TV show. And he acknowledges that his earlier personal problems — going through drug rehab in 1997 and relapsing early last year — will forever haunt him.

“Some of it is okay and you just kind of laugh and remember it’s all ridiculous but some of it makes you angry and your immediate response is to say, ‘Everybody’s lying. This isn’t right.’ ”

Perry says he finds the latest drug and alcohol rumors the most offensive, not because they hurt him personally, but because he feels his successful recovery from his addiction last year has served as source of inspiration to others going through the same thing.

“It may hurt their sobriety,” he says. “I get paid very, very well to deal with lies and to deal with all that stuff. I don’t look at it like I get paid to act. I get paid for all the crap that’s in between. But these people don’t. So if they’re hanging their hopes on a guy they relate to that’s had a problem, and they read that he’s back at it, it may hurt them.”

Perry had to seek treatment for an undisclosed addiction while making “Serving Sara,” during the spring of 2001. His health problems forced the production to shut down temporarily while he sought treatment.

“It would be impossible to look at this movie without realizing that this major crossroads in my life took place during the shooting of it,” he says candidly. “In a very strange way, and it was no plan of mine, it sort of works in the movie.”

Perry plays Joe Tyler, a court process server assigned to serve divorce papers to the beautiful wife (Hurley) of a philandering Texas rancher and businessman. Though it’s a romantic comedy, Perry’s character has a dark edge about him. He’s working in a thankless job and not entirely successful at it.

“This guy is down and out and I was in a pretty down and out time in my life,” he says. “So it looks like I’m a genius. It looks like I’m doing some Robert De Niro in ‘Raging Bull’ kind of thing.”

Perry says the challenge of the role was to figure out just how mean, jaded and terrible to play his character, while still making him likable to audiences. He and director Reginald Hudlin (”House Party”) found a happy medium.

“There were even darker parts of the movie that were cut out because we figured it would be too much,” adds Perry. “After all, it is a romantic comedy.”

As a process server, Perry’s character assumes different identities to accomplish his task of serving legal papers on usually reluctant recipients. The actor says the role afforded him a chance to use different accents. He modeled his English accent after co-star Hurley and a Spanish accent after a previous leading lady, Salma Hayek, for example. Perry says the role reminded him of Chevy Chase’s “Fletch,” minus the wacky outfits.

Since most of the film was already shot before Perry checked himself in at a Los Angeles area treatment center, Hudlin began editing the film in the interim. Production resumed after his recovery.

“It’s a year and a half later, and I’ve never been happier in my life,” Perry says with a smile. “I’ve never had so much fun.”

Perry not only emerged from treatment to finish his movie, he also was able to get his act together in time to return to “Friends.” He is now back at work for the ninth and likely final season of the series, for which he has been nominated for an Emmy in the leading actor category this year.

Perry says he doesn’t know how the writers will wrap up the series, if it wraps up, next spring. But he says that now that his character, Chandler, is married to Monica (Courteney Cox Arquette), it would be “sweet” if the couple had a baby on the way by the end of the show.

“There’s no relief in it being over because it’s just the greatest job ever,” Perry says, his thick brown hair stylishly mussed. “We don’t really like to think of the ending coming up. But I’m sure when February rolls around and we’re showing up to work going, ‘You know, we’ve only got three more of these things to do,’ it’ll be a very emotional time.”

But Perry has plenty to keep him busy without pondering his life post-”Friends.”

He recently signed a two-picture deal with Paramount Pictures (which also is distributing “Serving Sara”). He’ll reprise his role as the dentist neighbor of Bruce Willis’ hit man-in-hiding in the sequel to the 2000 box-office surprise hit, “The Whole Nine Yards.” The comedy goes into production in October.

Perry also is signed to star in “One Of Us,” playing a man who returns to his hometown to take over the family business only to fall in love with an alien sent to Earth to find a human guinea pig for her experiments. Perry describes the project, penned by Gerald Di Pego (”Phenomenon”), as a spiritual fantasy along the lines of “Cocoon.” Perry will also serve as an executive producer.

Perry says he wouldn’t mind having a career path similar to Oscar winning actor Tom Hanks, who also got his start on a popular TV sitcom (”Bosom Buddies”). But he understands the challenges ahead.

“People place you in niches in the show business world,” he laments. “I’ve been fortunate enough to prove that I can be the lead in a romantic comedy so those are the things that get offered to me. … At a certain point, you want to raise the bar and live a creative life and the way to do that is to keep switching it up.”

Acting is a competitive field, and tennis, says Perry, has helped him hone his competitive side.

“It’s a mental game and a great escape,” he says of the sport.

He has no illusions of switching careers and becoming a professional player, but he aspires to improve his game enough to reach the level of the teaching pros.

“It’s not just for fun,” he insists. “I’m there to improve my game and I want to win.”